Biography

I graduated with a BA in History and African Studies from the University of Toronto in 2012, and a MSc in African Studies from the University of Oxford in 2013. I am fascinated by the intersections between history and justice, especially on the African continent. My current research focuses on the prison system in Uganda from the onset of colonial rule to the overthrow of Idi Amin in 1979. I am interested in how prisons became sites of interaction and contestation between the state and society in both the colonial and post-colonial periods; spaces in which questions of power, morality, and identity were negotiated and challenged. My previous research focused on the detention of women during the Mau Mau Rebellion in colonial Kenya, with a particular emphasis on how colonial gendered perceptions of deviancy shaped punishment practices. More broadly, I am interested in the history of crime and punishment in colonial and post-colonial Africa; histories of women's detention and incarceration across the African continent; and the politics of reparations.